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Why is tuning a piano necessary?
First of all, there has
never been a piano made by any company, at any price, that does not require a schedule of regular tunings. It is also a fact
that a piano will go out of tune whether it is played or not.
The main reason why pianos go out of tune is due to changes
in humidity from season to season, affecting all pianos, new and old, played and unplayed.
Pianos go flat in the winter
months when dry heat expelled from your heater draws moisture out of the piano's soundboard. In the spring, when you turn
the heat off, the air is usually more moist. The soundboard absorbs this moisture, expands and causes the piano to go sharp(rise
in pitch) by the summer. These seasonal changes in tuning are often most obvious in the mid-range of the piano.
Temperature
and humidity are the two main culprits, humidity being the far worse foe of the two. Direct light, either stage or from the
sun, can affect the tuning within 30 minutes or less.When you move, it is not so much the transportation of the piano that
throws the tuning out as much as the piano getting used to to its new room environment. Wait about 2-4 weeks after you move
before you get a tuning.
If both humidity and temperature are controlled in the room where the piano is displayed, these
fluctuations in tuning virtually disappear and your tuning is much more stable. So is the overall consistency of the touch
response you'll get from the keyboard.
New strings can cause the pitch to go flat. New music wire is quite elastic and
starts to stretch as soon as it is pulled up to pitch. This is why new pianos or pianos that have been restrung need to be
tuned more frequently in the first year. Each time the wire is pulled up, the amount of stretching decreases and the tuning
becomes more stable.
Slipping tuning pins can also cause a piano to go flat(below pitch). Older pianos that have been exposed
to regular seasonal humidity changes over the years can have loose tuning pins and as a result, have poor tuning stability.
The
louder and more often you play a piano, the faster it goes out of tune by a small amount. The force of a hammer repeatedly
hitting a string can affect the equalization of tension along the string's length, and cause its pitch to be slightly altered.
(Ask any guitarist about strings getting played)
To put the matter of tuning in perspective, remember that a concert piano
is tuned before every performance, and a piano in a professional recording studio, where it is in constant use, can be tuned
as much as 3 or 4 times every week so that every recording has a fresh piano.
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